This present invention relates to a system and method for making and maintaining connections and providing and transmitting information between governmental persons and candidates and the audience. More particularly, the present invention includes website, portal, interface, mobile app, software program that allows governmental persons and candidates to connect and communicate with users of the website, portal, interface, mobile app, or software program.
It is a challenge for governmental officials or persons holding elected office (along with candidates for the same offices, collectively “governmental persons” or “GP”) to connect to their constituents and the public at large (collectively “Audience”). There is no central place for elected officials to post information to be consumed by the public. In today's digital age of the Internet and social media, there are many channels for governmental persons to publish information and broadcast messages. But most elected officials lack the resources to know all the channels that exist or to utilize all the channels even if the channels are known to them. Further complicating the matter, different channels require different technical knowledge and requirements. Governmental persons may not have the necessary personnel to perform the technical tasks in order to publish their information and broadcast their messages to those channels. Additionally, there is generally no reliable way to know if the recipients of the information or messages are indeed the same people that the governmental persons intended to reach. For example, if a state representative in Pennsylvania maintains a blog or Facebook page, but most of the visitors or viewers are from California, then the visitor stats may be misleading and vastly overestimating the effectiveness of the efforts to reach the senator's intended or targeted audience.
Governmental persons also cannot rely on the news media to get their message out. Many news stories are biased and do not accurately convey the governmental person's message. Yet others are reported out of context and only reflect the author's view of the governmental person's stance. It is even more difficult for candidates, especially at the state and local level.
It is also difficult for any member of the public to obtain information about persons they can cast votes for in any given election. Although there are places where the public can find information regarding the contenders, most sources of information only contain basic information and do not allow the public to thoroughly learn about the candidates (here and thereafter including incumbents and challengers). Those sources also usually do not allow the candidates themselves to choose what messages are published about them. Generally, candidates can only publish their messages through their own means (i.e. their own websites, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.).
When the election is over, after all the campaign ads are finished, it is even more difficult for the public to obtain up to date information about the persons they elected or other persons in office. This present invention aims to also serve as a portal that will connect the elected and lost candidates with the public between elections. The governmental persons can publish updates from the offices they hold and respond to hot topics. The lost candidate can keep in contact with the voting public by doing the same.